How much Does it Cost to Renovate a House?

24 de April de 2022

One of the big questions we all tend to ask ourselves when thinking about doing construction or renovating our house is how much it will cost us. And that cost forecast is difficult to make if we don't have knowledge in this field.

In addition, the prices of renovations and rehabilitations vary greatly between cities or autonomous communities. That is why we often do not know if it will be 3,000 or 30,000, especially when it comes to renovating an old house. Today we are going to try to shed some light on this issue and do a small study of how much it costs to renovate a house in Spain.

On many occasions, as users, we are not even able to understand the magnitude of the work to be done. We think that renovating a home is giving it a “face lift”, making it more beautiful on the outside, but we are unaware of the depth of the internal damage. Especially in terms of electricity, plumbing or insulation.

These are reforms and rehabilitations that are not easily seen, but when an experienced professional sees them, they quickly identify them. Sometimes even certain damages or problems are not discovered until the work itself begins. Internal deficiencies that cause an increase in the cost of materials or the time and labor of execution.
This can be a serious problem, especially in certain circumstances:

In the rehabilitation of our main home.
In the rehabilitation and renovation of an old house in a town.
When buying a “bargain” home that needs renovation.

In all these cases, if we are not able to foresee the budget of expenses well, we may discover that it was not cheap.

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Cost budget of a rehabilitation

First of all, what must be taken into account is the surface area of the dwelling in question and the surface area to be rehabilitated. Since everything is going to be calculated based on these measures. Both the purchase of material and the billing of labor is usually done per square meter. From there, the cost forecast is somewhat easier.
You also have to take into account the initial state of the house. If it is a house that has not had any type of reform or rehabilitation in several decades, surely the expenses in reforming the electricity or plumbing will be more expensive. On the other hand, a house that has already had some type of reforms or improvements, even if they are partial, in recent years, the cost of rehabilitation will be lower.
And we must also not lose sight of the materials to be used. This is something logical, if we want to save on cost we can do it and it will mean a reduction in spending. But you already know that this saving will be in the short term, in the long term it may be more expensive. A rehabilitation with materials of the best quality will mean more economic outlay, but surely a longer useful life of the materials.

In the long run, this will mean significant savings, not only in terms of future reforms and repairs, but also in terms of efficiency and energy expenditure. It seems obvious, but the saying “cheap is expensive” is true in the case of a home rehabilitation.

Expenses of a rehabilitation

Once we are clear about the surface area to be intervened and specifically the scope of the reforms, we can already make a more adjusted forecast of the rehabilitation expense of our home.
For this we are going to leave you some categories for the scope of the expense. We can already multiply the costs by the number of meters and we will obtain approximate figures.

The expensive expenses are the most expensive we can have in a reform. On average we can calculate that it will cost on average about 120-200 euros per square meter. Such as: reforms in the structure of the house, foundation of surfaces, enclosures.

For medium expenses we can take as a reference between 70 and 100 euros per square meter where we could include: installation of heating, exterior or interior carpentry works, masonry or paving.

The economic expenses are usually cheaper than those of the previous categories. As a reference, you have to calculate between 20 and 50 euros per square meter for plumbing works, electrical works, installation of toilets or coverings.

In the chapter of minor expenses are usually the lowest expenses in any reform. As a reference, you can consider less than 20 euros per square meter for demolition of elements, debris removal and waste management, installation of lighting elements or ventilation systems.

Well, with this simple checklist you can already make a first forecast. We can also compare how expensive or cheap a reform will be and even compare it. For this, consider the reference that, in Spain, building a new house, implies an expense of about 1000 euros per square meter. We are always talking about construction costs including the necessary material, we do not include here the licenses, architectural projects, etc.

Other expenses of the reform or rehabilitation

Although the acquisition of material and labor are the two fundamental expenses of any reform or rehabilitation of housing, they are not the only ones. Especially if the reform is deep (large rehabilitations, facades, structure, roof, etc.) the costs of licenses and projects make the reform more expensive.
As a general rule, it must be taken into account that this type of expense represents between 10 and 15% of the total expense of the rehabilitation. Mainly planning expenses and projects of architects and application for building permits in town halls.
They may seem like large high expenses but it must be taken into account that this type of expense provides us with:

Legality. Our rehabilitation will respect the current legality and will save us future problems in many aspects.
Security. Both during the execution of the work or rehabilitation and in the post reform our home will be a safe place in every way if the hand of a professional is behind its planning and execution.

Another small element that you should take into account when forecasting the expenses of a reform is the purchase of additional material. We refer to surplus tiles, floors, etc. In any reform it is always advisable to acquire this extra material that, although not used in the rehabilitation, will be useful in the future if there is a small breakdown and we must replace already installed materials. In the event of a neighbor's leak, for example.

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You might also be interested in our article on basic housing project.